


take my hand, take my whole life too

by bucketofrice



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff, post free-skate at pyeongchang, the precipice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 16:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14336688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofrice/pseuds/bucketofrice
Summary: "... for I can't help, falling in love with you."orTessa and Scott, in a room in Pyeongchang, on the precipice.





	take my hand, take my whole life too

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis.
> 
> Weeelll, I really did not think I'd end up here, writing RPF for two ice dancers. But here we are, and I can honestly only blame Tumblr and my overactive imagination. Apologies if I botched any timelines.

He’s looking across the room at her, perched on the corner of her neatly made bed; they’re holding eye contact and he feels like he’s on a precipice.

Really, he’s just sitting on the corner of Kaitlyn’s bed — he makes sure to thank whatever god there may be for the fact that Tessa’s roommate is currently anywhere but here — but it may as well be the edge of a cliff, as if he’s staring into the depths of oblivion. 

They’ve finally escaped the media circus that followed their free skate, after countless interviews and awkward questions, and unfortunate hand placement and saying the words _business partners_ so many times they taste rotten on his tongue and he kind of wants to banish them from their vocabulary, forever. They were at it for what felt like hours, before he looked at her, an unspoken question in his gaze, and she nodded, and they decided silently that they needed a break.

When they entered her room (his is one floor above hers, too long an elevator ride, they decided, and besides, hers is guaranteed to be neater) they felt like they could finally breathe again. Breathe, and sit down, and let the feeling of having won another gold medal finally wash over them. Because, _oh my god, we actually did it, T, we won!_ Despite all odds, or maybe because of them, their two-year plan had worked out, and here they were, the most decorated ice dancers in Olympic history, trying to come to terms with it all.

They’ve officially entered the _after_ part of the two-year plan, he realizes, and it fills him with a wave of panic. On the outset, the two-year plan, the triumphant comeback to a changed world of ice dance, their shot at proving that Sochi was not the end, was simple.

Train as hard as they could. Get their minds and bodies in synch. Communicate. Adapt. Perfect every element of every routine. Win gold at the Olympics — again. 

And yet, nothing about the comeback plan included any mentions of what they would mean to each other off the ice. There was no talk of falling back into old habits (or, more aptly, old beds), no discussion about the fact that his insistence that _it wasn’t finding skating, it was finding Tessa_ , was a better explanation for the comeback than pure redemption ever could be. They compartmentalized their entire existence for those two years, regimented by Marie and Patch, by B2Ten, by themselves, and maintained unspoken boundaries that were never to be crossed. 

Until after.

Back on his precipice, Scott’s eyes are still locked with Tessa’s, neither of them daring to make a move or say something to break the silence. They agreed they wouldn’t talk about this, about _them_ , until after, because feelings that extended beyond _‘we’ve grown up together and we’re best friends and this is a goddamn platonic business relationship’_ were absolutely not in the interest of the two-year plan. So for the benefit of their skating career, all their pent up emotional baggage was channeled straight out onto the ice.

A win for their artistry, and on-ice chemistry, sure. In some twisted way, a win for their relationship too, because they set a singular goal and strict boundaries and they left little room for outside interests.

But now? Well, now they’ve hit that vague _after_ , the part they so determinedly avoided for two years. And so they’re staring at one another, waiting for something to happen.

“I—” they both start, and promptly stop again.

The tension in the room is palpable, nervous energy fizzing off the both of them and he feels like he wants to simultaneously scoop her up in his arms and never let go — and run and vomit. Truly a winning combination. 

The precipice is so close now, he can almost feel himself beginning to slip, like he’s done in practically every interview since they landed in Korea. Except now, there aren’t ten cameras trained on them and the world isn’t watching and no one can post this to Twitter. 

Now it’s just him, sitting across from the love of his life on a red and purple standard-issue duvet in what amounts to a dorm room halfway across the world from home. And she’s looking at him with uncertainty and exhaustion and _dare he say it_ , hope in her eyes, that little bit of extra sparkle in the sea of _green, gorgeous green_ , and Scott thinks there’s a slim chance that the multitude of feelings coursing through his mind might be doing the same for her.

Of course, Tessa looks much more poised in this whole situation, sitting neatly on the edge of the bed, hands clasped on her lap, waiting with bated breath. Meanwhile, his entire body feels like it’s tingling all over, practically burning with need — and dread, because he knows if this goes wrong he probably won’t make it out alive.

Screw being one half of the most decorated figure skating pair in Olympic history, he thinks, because _this_ may be the single most important moment in his life, not the four and a half minutes he spent singing _I will love you, until my dying day_ and pouring everything they’d worked for onto the ice.

Because he really does love her, will until his dying day, knows this with the same certainty that he feels when his blade hits the ice because he’s had two years (the goddamn comeback plan again) to figure it out, since apparently the eighteen years they spent together before that hadn’t been enough. 

(Though he thinks it may be more like twelve, since he’ll cut his nine-year-old self some slack.)

Anyway, focus, because this, this is the precipice, and he cannot, will not screw it up.

“Tess—”

“Scott—”

They stop short and both let out awkward, breathy laughs, because _of course_ , they’re achingly in synch with each other except when it comes to this. Go figure.

“On three?” she suggests, and he can’t help but grin. When they were little, just starting out together, they made a pact to always say what bothered them at the same time when they argued, so no one would have to deal with any accusations alone.

Twenty years, three Olympics and countless arguments later, he’s relieved to realize that deep down, they’re really still the same kids from Ontario who once fought about who got to colour what Toy Story book on the train.

So he nods, his stomach performing a very impressive bout of gymnastics as he comes to the realization that every single repressed feeling he held back for the past two years is about to be in the open.

Because all through the two-year plan, they never talked about these feelings between them, never acted upon them, never crossed that big, red, imaginary line, but _damn_ , if they hadn’t gotten good at toeing it. Touches during practice, more _connection_ on the ice, off-ice too, afternoons and nights and weekends spent at each other’s apartments, cooking (because no one can live off of eggs and toast alone) or watching movies or just quietly enjoying each other’s company.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Except for it was everything else too, but neither of them dared to voice it, pop the bubble they’d so carefully constructed around themselves and this comeback. Until now.

Three, two, one…

_“I’m in love with you.”_  

He closes his eyes right after, screws them shut because he cannot bear to look at her in case she said something wildly different than he did. (Later, they realize they both had the same gut reaction, and they can’t help but laugh at the fact that they were so monumentally oblivious and fearful till the very end.) It takes him a second, but then he realizes the words out of her mouth sounded much like the ones out of his own, and he dares to open his eyes, peek at her, and confirm. 

When he looks at her, she’s staring at him, mouth agape, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She looks like she did after they skated today, full of disbelief but also _sheer joy_ and his heart skips about three beats because, oh my god, Tessa Virtue is in love with him.

The precipice is looking better every step he takes toward it.

There’s a moment where all they can do is stare (like two lovestruck idiots, but they really are lovestruck idiots), unblinking. Then she mouths ‘really?’ and he nods, moving his chin to the slightest degree and suddenly everything moves in slow motion. 

They push themselves upwards, meet in the middle between her and Kaitlyn’s beds, and find each other in a bone-crushing hug. It’s not unlike the hugs they share almost daily (their B2Ten team would be so proud of the fact that their breathing starts involuntarily synching) but it’s so much more too.

He mumbles nonsense into her ear, mostly how much he loves her, and is proud of her, and is _in love_ with her, and it takes them a full minute to realize they’re still hugging and haven’t kissed yet. Which they could now be doing. And which might prove enjoyable.

He releases his grip on her so he can cup her cheeks and look her in the eyes. She looks back at him, eyes wide and open and unafraid and he can’t help but see his entire life reflected in them. Because she’s his entire life — past, present and now, finally, future — and he almost can’t believe it. 

“Hi,” he breathes, at a loss for words or actions or really anything at this point.

She smiles, pushes herself up on her toes, just a fraction, and whispers it back, a hairs breadth from his mouth before she presses her lips to his. 

The kiss is soft and exploring for a bit there, lips relearning the feel of one another after nearly a decade apart. (Yes, they’ve done this before, but this is nothing like it, he decides. It’s much, much better.) But after a few seconds all their previously repressed instincts kick in, and suddenly it’s forceful, and passionate, and tongues battling and they keep going until they need air, raking their hands through each other’s hair and up and down their backs. 

When they do need to breathe, their foreheads fall together, and they’re still sporting the same wide grins and tears in their eyes and he swears he’s the luckiest man on the planet right now. 

“Holy shit, T,” he starts, and she laughs, and he can’t help but laugh too. “We really made it.”

“We did. Together.”

He smiles at that, because it’s true, they’ve always gotten there together, and now they’re standing on the edge of the cliff, next to each other, them against the universe. And together, they’re bound to be invincible.

He kisses her again, full of promises for the future and uncharted territory, threads his hands through her hair and kisses his way down her neck. She pushes him back up to a standing position, and he may look a little like a lost puppy, taken aback by the interruption. She just laughs, turns her head toward the bed and smiles.

He grins. So she takes his hand and pulls him down on top of her, onto the bed, over the precipice, into free fall.

He thinks it feels like flying.


End file.
